I slit a piece of hallowed bread and ate.
That afternoon, unsatisfied with the ginger-scented
pits, I bathed in cold water, stillness came.
The same stillness that paralyzed my feet at the service
where men smothered divinity.
–
The day I hosted the priest in the garden he stole a tomato.
His solitude, reminiscent of my sound. Greenthread
flowers walked out of the soil and gnawed beneath his feet.
I wanted the heat of a black tire, the whale named Furnace
on the boat harbored by a continent I once visited,
where the devil was a place. The orange, the television,
the orange, the black-lit wires in the dark.
The priest stared into the sun – the horizon falling
into his throat. A battle between two whales broke the sea.
My own ship-eater visioned in a book. A season of birthing
without a midwife. “Get the fucking towel Paul!”
–
I slit them. Each cut smoked and flourished.
I became heaven, water flowing from flesh,
blemish-black ginger scent. The priest left the crust
and I smiled like an old man’s
house, sadden to see crumbs scattered, a hopscotch
in blur.
–
Brian Gyamfi is a Ghanaian-American writer from Texas. He is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, two Hopwood Awards, and a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Poetry International Prize. He is a contributing editor at Oxford Poetry.